Samsung Chromebook 2 Review

Launched back in 2014, Samsung’s Chromebook 2 is still one of the best chromebooks available on the market right now, with an unbeatable price and offering some great performance and value for the money you spend. But, even though it’s one of Amazon’s bestsellers – ranked at #3 in the laptops category and #1 best selling Chromebook – is it still actual today, about one year and a half after its launch? That’s exactly what we’re trying to find out in our review of the Samsung Chromebook 2, so read on for an updated opinion published in 2016!

Chromebooks – which are laptops running on Google’s own operating system, the Chrome OS – are meant as very portable, light and easy to use laptops that you use for internet browsing. They are not meant for playing games (unless they can be played in a browser), they’re not meant for downloading large files like movies… they’re basically meant for offering a lightweight but performant browsing experience at a very low cost. Plus, since today you can do almost everything online – from text editing to watching movies, listening to music and even playing games, it comes extremely handy. So let’s see if the Samsung Chromebook 2 really excels!

The Specifications

This Chromebook runs on an Intel Celeron processor that buzzes at 2.16GHZ (going up to 2.58GHz) and it has 2 GB of RAM. The 16 GB Solid-State Drive offers basic (but extremely fast) storage. It is a small laptop – 11.6 inches – but it still has a great maximum resolution of 1366 x 768. It is very light at around 2.7 pounds and its battery life offers up to 9 hours on one charge, which is pretty much amazing! There are no optical drives, but you have one extra Micro SD slot, as well as 2 USB ports and 1 HDMI port. There’s also a headphone jack where you can also use almost any speakers if you need them.

In other words, the Samsung Chromebook 2 is made to be light, cheap and offer as much as possible performance-wise when used for internet browsing or doing any internet-related activities.

The Design

This 11.6 inches chromebook is actually very sleek looking and even though there’s a lot of cheap plastic used to keep it as light as possible, it doesn’t look cheap – on the contrary! On a plus note, the back of the laptop is wrapped with a leather-like finish which not only looks great, but also gives you a softer material to grip when carrying it around. It is thin, it is light and it feels good – you can’t wish for more! It is actually still one of the thinnest chromebooks on the market, folding into a slim 0.66-inch package.

And even though we’re talking about such a small size, the TouchPad is large and somehow Samsung managed to keep the keys large enough to be able to type quickly without a problem. The keys are smaller that those of a regular keyboard and it does take a bit of time to adjust to it, but once you get it running, you can type as fast as possible without any real obstacles. Here are some images of this great Chromebook:

The Performance

I’ve watched 1080p videos on YouTube without any lag or other problems and I was extremely satisfied. The chromebook works well even when there are 15 tabs open, but it starts to act a bit funny afterwards, lagging at 20-25 (depending on the web pages that you have opened). On internet pages that are loaded with graphics and other intensive memory consuming “goodies” like pages with tons of tables, animations and images, the browsing experience is a bit slow – but the cases are rare and overall I can declare myself satisfied with this product.

It can also multitask well – listening to music while browsing is totally doable and everything looks great. Video calls (like Skype) work great too, the display offers some vibrant, natural colors and this laptop stands strong even though it’s not the latest model on the market and it’s been available for 1.5 years already. Apparently, when you launch a great product, it performs great for a long while.

Conclusion

At the moment of writing this, the Samsung Chromebook 2 is selling at under $200 on Amazon (price might change – have this in mind!) and for this price, it offers incredible value for money. If you don’t need a real laptop to handle more tasks and run on Microsoft’s Windows OS and all you care about is browsing the internet and doing everything online, Samsung’s Chromebook 2 is still a perfect choice in 2016 – and I don’t see why it wouldn’t remain solid for the next couple of years.

It has a flawless design, it is very light and thin, the screen is great and the overall performance is top notch. We have a real winner here: available on Amazon, so click this link to check it out (or click here for the UK/Europe).

Affiliate information

This blog is part of the Amazon Associates program, meaning that we will get a small commission for products you purchase by following our links to Amazon.com products. This does NOT mean that you pay more than you would if you went to the same product page on Amazon by yourself.